The UN has released a draft report which suggests that world governments may be forced to extract large volumes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by 2100 in order to achieve the UN target that is said to be needed in order to keep global warming under control.
Scenarios to keep greenhouse gas emissions in-line with UN targets claim that world emissions would have to fall by 40-70 percent by 2050. The unlikelihood of this occurring means that countries will be left with no other option by to actively suck the harmful gases out of the air.
Reuters reports that this draft is still subject to change and will be published in April after editing by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Related article: Are We Falling Off the Climate Precipice?
Currently the world is doing too little to achieve emissions level targets set back in 2010 that would help keep average temperature rise to less than 2°C above pre-industrial times. In order to put us back on target the IPCC states that we may need to resort to technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the air, whether that be in the form of carbon capture and storage, or simply planting more trees to absorb the carbon.
It may even get to the point where carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies would have to be deployed on such a scale as to create a negative level for net global carbon dioxide emissions before 2100.
In order to get on track to achieve targets the report notes that the world would have to increase investment in low-carbon energy sources by $147 billion a year up to 2030. At the same time investment in fossil fuels must fall by $30 billion a year, and implementation of energy efficient technologies must receive an extra several hundred billion a year.
Governments across the planet have agreed to confirm a global UN deal to restrict emissions by 2015, ready to go into effect by 2020, yet progress in the creation of this deal has been slow so far.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More